Colleges' Sexual Assault Responses Lacking

LAURA CORDES | OP-EDThe Hartford Courant

Seven University of Connecticut women filed a Title IX discrimination complaint last week with the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights alleging the university violated their rights when they reported being raped and sexually harassed on campus. These women showed incredible strength by sharing their stories and speaking openly about their experiences.

This is not the first time, however, that a university in Connecticut has had a Title IX complaint filed against it, nor does it suggest that campuses without a complaint have adequately addressed the problem of sexual violence.

The complaint against UConn and a now-settled Office of Civil Rights investigation of Yale University highlight the prevalence of sexual violence at public and private institutions. These actions underscore the real need for training programs and comprehensive campaigns to challenge the attitudes and behaviors that foster high rates of sexual violence on college campuses.

The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that nearly 25 percent of college women might experience an attempted or completed rape during their academic career. The perpetrators are rarely strangers, but more often someone known to the victim: a classmate, a friend's boyfriend or a roommate. Offenders use this familiarity to gain access, plan their assaults and then use alcohol, and/or fear and threats, to coerce, manipulate or forcibly attack their victims.

Student survivors of sexual violence who are away from home for the first time, often in closed communities with a limited support network, face a long and difficult healing process. Coping with trauma, they are more likely than their peers to miss class, perform poorly academically and withdraw from school. Having grown up in a culture where victims are routinely blamed for their own assault, survivors of sexual violence risk losing control of their private information, the loss of friends and intense scrutiny of their behavior. Additionally, they are faced with the daunting task of navigating their reporting options in order to secure their safety and hold offenders accountable.

Understandably, many victims choose not to report the crime. For those who do, far too many experience what the UConn complaint alleges: additional trauma and re-victimization when met with indifference from an administrator, police officer or a representative from the very institution they trusted to respond with care and support. Needless to say, our young women deserve much better.

Since 1986, Connecticut Sexual Assault Crisis Services and the College Consortium Against Sexual Assault — a dedicated network of representatives from public and private universities and colleges, including UConn — have been meeting alongside sexual assault victim advocates to exchange ideas and promote best practice to address sexual violence on Connecticut's college and university campuses.

Our report, the 2012 Campus Report Card, released earlier this year, provides a snapshot of the self-reported sexual violence policies and practices at 25 of Connecticut's colleges and universities. Collectively, Connecticut schools received higher "grades" for having updated policies that define sexual assault, consent and possible sanctions for student offenders, and lower grades for a lack of mandatory training for fraternities, sororities, campus police, judicial board hearing officers and sexual assault response team members.

We have work to do. The rates of sexual violence are far too high and the impact far too devastating and costly to ignore.

Policies and programs are only as strong as those who drive and administer them. Institutions of higher education must build the capacity and skills of staff to ensure that victims' experiences and needs are not minimized and that offenders are held responsible.

Ongoing, consistent prevention education for all students and training for first responders is essential and now required under both state and federal law.

Our hope is that this latest complaint brings greater attention to the issue of sexual assault on campuses. All colleges and universities must re-examine and redouble their efforts to build communities where the problem of sexual violence is understood and addressed by students and administrators, staff and faculty and where the message is clear — sexual assault is not tolerated here.